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Literally tens of acquaintances are pestering me what to do. Slowdowns include issues with opening apps, opening more than a few browser tabs, general directory navigation and so on.

Given the fact my desktop is still sidelined from a few hardware failures I can't test this just yet, but I'll make sure to backup all the stuff before installing any updates or microcode stuff.

Any similar experiences?

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I've been having an issue with the latest AMD Adrenalin drivers. Apparently, there is a bug in Firefox where if you open a YouTube video, your GPU load shoots to 100% and stays there even when you close the browser. My fan is also stuck at 34% load. You can change some flags in Firefox to stop this from happening, or use the Crimson drivers.

Its not just Firefox. Youtubing with Chrome is fine but launch a game while the video is running and it will freeze the gpu. The sound will continue to play untill the video is finished but after that a restart is necessary.

Intel's fix for Spectre variant 2 – the branch target injection design flaw affecting most of its processor chips – is not to fix it.

Rather than preventing abuse of processor branch prediction by disabling the capability and incurring a performance hit, Chipzilla's future chips – at least for a few years until microarchitecture changes can be implemented – will ship vulnerable by default but will include a protection flag that can be set by software.

Intel explained its approach in its technical note about Spectre mitigation, titled Speculative Execution Side Channel Mitigations. Instead of treating Spectre as a bug, the chip maker is offering Spectre protection as a feature.

The decision to address the flaw with an opt-in flag rather than activating defenses by default has left Linux kernel steward Linus Torvalds apoplectic.

Known for incendiary tirades, Torvalds does not disappoint. In a message posted to the Linux kernel mailing list on Sunday, he wrote, "As it is, the patches are COMPLETE AND UTTER GARBAGE."

"All of this is pure garbage. Is Intel really planning on making this shit architectural?" he asked. "Has anybody talked to them and told them they are f*cking insane? Please, any Intel engineers here – talk to your managers."

The kernel supremo wasn't done there. In response to the suggestion from a long-time developer that the patches were a necessary "nasty hack," Torvalds exploded:

They do literally insane things. They do things that do not make sense ... The patches do things that are not sane.

The firmware patches designed to protect Intel processors against nasty Spectre CPU exploits have a big downside: They’re forcing more frequent reboots and other performance issues on some systems, including PCs that released in 2017. The problem is severe enough that Intel is now recommending that users not install currently available patches and instead wait for new ones to be released.

“We have now identified the root cause for Broadwell and Haswell platforms, and made good progress in developing a solution to address it,” Intel executive vice president Navin Shenoy said in a January 22 post. “We recommend that OEMs, cloud service providers, system manufacturers, software vendors and end users stop deployment of current versions, as they may introduce higher than expected reboots and other unpredictable system behavior.”

The advice reverses Intel’s previous guidance, which said users should install the CPU firmware patches despite the risk of more frequent system reboots. Although Shenoy’s post only explicitly mentions Broadwell and Haswell chips, Intel’s new microcode revision guidance states that the advice applies to more modern chips as well.

[ Further reading: How to remove malware from your Windows PC ]
meltdown spectre
Google/Natascha Eibl
On January 11, Intel confirmed that the firmware patches prompted more frequent reboots in Haswell (2013) and Broadwell (2014) systems. A week later, Intel revealed that many other processor generations also succumb to the reboot bug: Sandy Bridge (2011), Ivy Bridge (2012), Skylake (2015), and Kaby Lake (2017). The January 22 microcode revision guidance says current 8th-gen “Coffee Lake” CPUs are also affected by the issue.

“Over the weekend, we began rolling out an early version of the updated solution to industry partners for testing, and we will make a final release available once that testing has been completed,” Shenoy says.

Keep an eye out for those new firmware updates, which will come from your PC hardware vendor (HP, Dell, Asus, et cetera) rather than Intel itself. Spectre attacks haven’t been observed in the wild, but now that the exploits have been published, they’re no doubt coming. AMD says its processors face “near-zero” risk from the Spectre variant that requires a microcode update, but it is nevertheless releasing optional firmware updates for its chips.

Attackers need to be able to run code on your PC to exploit the CPU flaws. Staying strong on the security front can keep malware that gives hackers access to your PC off your PC. PCWorld’s review of the best antivirus suites can help you find solid protection. But guarding against these exploits requires more than security software and fresh firmware. These flaws touch every aspect of your computer. Check out PCWorld’s guide on how to protect your PC against Meltdown and Spectre for everything you need to know.

Editor’s note: This article originally published on January 18, 2017, when Intel admitted the issue affects more than just Broadwell and Haswell chips. It was updated on January 22 when Intel advised users to stop installing the first set of CPU firmware patches.

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But islamism IS a product of class warfare. Rich white countries come into developing brown dictatorships, wreck the leadership, infrastructure and economy and then act all surprised that religious fanaticism is on the rise.

PiHole can end up acting as a bottleneck for internet speed. That may have been rectified though, I haven't tried using it for about 18 months.

Originally Posted by Paul Mason

It is absurd that we are capable of witnessing a 40,000 year old system of gender oppression begin to dissolve before our eyes yet still see the abolition of a 200 year old economic system as an unrealistic utopia.

- uBlock Origin
- uMatrix That's basically NoScript from the same guy who made uBlock. After the FF Quantum update, NoScript started to act strange and the supposed fix didn't fix the strangeness for me. Also, its UI was so much dumped down, that all the fine tuning one could do before has been gone.
- Disable WebRTC
- HTTPS Everywhere Form the fine folks at EFF, makes sure that you go to the HTTPS version of a site (if avaliable), even if you typed "http" only.

Originally, I used AdBlock Plus until they went retard with that "allowed ads", which didn't seem to do it. o I used Disable WebRTC in conjunction. Will at least disable it for now. Thx for the pointer!

Self-Destroying Cookies (Firefox) or Cookie AutoDelete (Chrome) - Delete a tab's cookies after you close that tab. Allow whitelisting so you can still stay logged in. This eliminates quite a lot of tracking. There's a (configurable) timeout so the usual undo close (Ctrl+Shift+T) will tend to work and not require a new login.